Cisco Lean Retail Oracle E-Business Suite 11i Application Deployment Guide
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Table Of Contents
Cisco Lean Retail Oracle E-Business Suite 11i Application Deployment Guide
Enterprise Application Overview
Enterprise Network Architecture
Data Center Network Components
Design and Implementation Details
Cisco Lean Retail Oracle E-Business Suite 11i Application Deployment Guide
July 16, 2008
This document provides network design best practices to enhance an Oracle E-Business Suite 11i application environment across the WAN. It introduces key concepts and options regarding the application deployment and detailed designs strategies available to a data center leveraging Cisco application and networking technologies.
Introduction
The Cisco Lean Retail Oracle E-Business Suite solution provides best practices and implementation guidance that optimizes application availability, performance, and security while lowering application ownership costs. Cisco's Lean Retail architecture provides accelerated application performance and improved access to information. Data center-based applications and hosted managed services can have their performance accelerated to LAN-like speeds. The Oracle E-Business Suite is an extensive set of business applications developed to assist enterprises in addressing these challenges. The E-Business application framework is a flexible environment designed to protect, extend, and evolve business processes.
Cisco's Lean Retail architecture includes:
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Application and collaboration services
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A key Lean Retail integrated network service is the Application Networking Service (ANS). This solution focuses on the ANS components of Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE) and Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) product families. It provides data center, retail store, and remote end-user application optimization services. This solution addresses the following Oracle E-Business Suite deployment challenges:
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The value of Cisco's Lean Retail is accomplished through four key benefits:
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Deploying new applications and capabilities quickly and effectively are key IT metrics that improve an organization's business agility. Cisco's Lean Retail enables more applications to be deployed centrally, cutting down dramatically on the time and cost of deployment. Deploying centrally also reduces the costs of opening new stores and of integrating acquisitions. While many retailers will choose to deploy some applications in the stores, Lean Retail Architecture improves the capabilities of a central deployment model. To learn more about Cisco's Lean Retail, see:
http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/retail/lean-retail.html
Scope
Cisco data center and store architectures are established enterprise designs that deliver highly available and robust network infrastructures. This document describes the deployment of the Oracle E-Business Suite in a Cisco data center while leveraging services available in the store. This end-to-end solution design employs many integrated network services, including load balancing, security, and application optimization.
Enterprise Architecture
This section describes the application architecture of the Oracle E-Business Suite 11i.
Enterprise Application Overview
The data center is a repository for enterprise software applications that are continuously changing to meet business requirements and to accommodate the latest technological advances and methods. Consequently, the logical and physical structure of the data center server farm and of the network infrastructure hosting these software applications is also continuously changing.
The server farm has evolved from the classic client/server model to an N-tier approach, where "N" implies any number, such as 2-tier, or 4-tier; basically, any number of distinct tiers used in the architecture. The N-tier model logically or physically separates the enterprise application by creating functional areas. These areas are generally defined as the web front end, the application business logic, and the database tiers. Figure 1 shows the progression of the enterprise application from the client/server to N-tier paradigm.
Figure 1 Client/Server and N-Tier Model
The N-tier model provides a more scalable and manageable enterprise application environment because it creates distinct serviceable areas in the software application. The application is distributed and becomes more resilient as single points of failure are removed from the design.
The Oracle Application Architecture uses the N-tier model by distributing application services across nodes in the server farm. The Oracle Application Architecture, as shown in Figure 2, uses the logical separation of tiers as desktop, application, and database. It is important to remember that each tier can consist of one or more physical hosts to provide the enterprise with the required performance or application availability.
Figure 2 Oracle Application Architectures
Desktop Tier
The desktop tier, traditionally called the presentation layer, consists of the store user interface (a web browser). The browser connects to the application tier via HTTP or HTTPS to the web server or the forms server. Historically, the forms server required the use of a client-side applet, Oracle JInitiator, which runs as an Active-X or plug-in on the client browser using a direct socket connection to the forms server. This direct-connect environment requires the associate to access the forms server directly. This obviously exposes an enterprise to potential security risks when connectivity is allowed beyond the confines of the corporate LAN or WAN by requiring "holes" in firewalls. Figure 3 shows the impact of a direct socket connection on the firewall and the security of the enterprise.
Figure 3 Traditional Desktop to Form Server Connections
In 2002, Oracle E-Business Suite offered a more "Internet-friendly" forms server application by allowing a Java forms listener servlet to intercept forms server requests via the web listener. The forms listener servlet allows a single HTTP or HTTPS connection between the client, desktop tier, and the application tier. Figure 4 shows the more secure forms listener servlet deployment model, which can also take advantage of standard SSL offload and load balancing approaches.
Figure 4 Forms Listener Servlet Architecture
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Application Tier
The application tier of the Oracle E-Business Suite provides administrative services and business logic, allowing end users at the desktop tier to make use of the information found at the database tier. Figure 2 shows the primary servers residing in this layer:
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Each of the application servers provides business process logic or management services to the Oracle E-Business Suite-enabled enterprise. The desktop tier communicates with the application tier via the web server listener (see Figure 4).
The application tier is commonly referred to as the APPL_TOP. The APPL_TOP is a file system that can reside on a single physical node or span multiple nodes in a "shared" multi-node application tier deployment. A shared APPL_TOP resides on a common disk mounted by each node in the 11i installation. A shared APPL_TOP allows any of the nodes to invoke the six primary server functions, such as the web server and forms server. The primary advantage to a shared application tier deployment is the ability to patch and/or modify a single file system in a multi-node deployment, propagating those changes to all nodes simultaneously.
In addition, the use of a single file system requires the backup of only a single file system despite the use of multiple nodes. Figure 5 shows three server nodes sharing the application file system via NFS. The shared mount point in this case is a storage device located in the network.
Figure 5 Shared Application File System
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Database Tier
A database is a structured collection of data. This complex construct consists of tables, indexes, and stored procedures; each an important element to organize and access the data. Oracle provides a database management system (DBMS) or relational DBMS (RDBMS) to interface with the data collected by the application tier. The database tier does not directly communicate with the desktop tier; instead, the database relies on the application tier as an intermediary. To provide increased performance, scalability, and availability, Oracle offers Real Application Clusters (RAC), which allow multiple nodes to support a single database instance.
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Enterprise Network Architecture
Data Center Network Components
The logical topology of the data center infrastructure can be divided into the front-end network and the back-end network, depending on their role:
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Front-End Network
The front-end network contains three distinct functional layers:
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Figure 6 shows a multi-tier front-end network topology and a variety of services that are available at each of these layers.
Figure 6 Data Center Multi-Tier Model Topology
Core Layer
The core layer is a gateway that provides high-speed connectivity to external entities such as the WAN, intranet, and extranet of the campus. The data center core is a Layer 3 domain where efficient forwarding of packets is the fundamental objective. To this end, the data center core is built with high-bandwidth links (10 GE) and employs routing best practices to optimize traffic flows.
Aggregation Layer
The aggregation layer is a point of convergence for network traffic that provides connectivity between server farms at the access layer and the rest of the enterprise. The aggregation layer supports Layer 2 and Layer 3 functionality, and is an ideal location for deploying centralized application, security, and management services. These data center services are shared across the access layer server farms, and provide common services in a way that is efficient, scalable, predictable, and deterministic.
The aggregation layer provides a comprehensive set of features for the data center. The following devices support these features:
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Access Layer
The primary role of the access layer is to provide the server farms with the required port density. In addition, the access layer must be a flexible, efficient, and predictable environment to support client-to-server and server-to-server traffic. A Layer 2 domain meets these requirements by providing the following:
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Layer 2 adjacency in the server farm lets you deploy servers or clusters that require the exchange of information at Layer 2 only. It also readily supports access to network services in the aggregation layer, such as load balancers and firewalls. This enables an efficient use of shared, centralized network services by the server farms.
In contrast, if services are deployed at each access switch, the benefit of those services is limited to the servers directly attached to the switch. Through access at Layer 2, it is easier to insert new servers into the access layer. The aggregation layer is responsible for data center services, while the Layer 2 environment focuses on supporting scalable port density.
Layer 3 access designs are not widely deployed in current data centers. However, to minimize fault domains and provide rapid convergence, network administrators are seeking to leverage the benefits of Layer 3. Layer 3 designs do not exclude the introduction of network services, but the transparency of the service at the aggregation layer is more difficult to maintain. As with all access layer designs, the requirements of the application environments drive the decision for either model. The access layer must provide a deterministic environment to ensure a stable Layer 2 domain regardless of its size. A predictable access layer allows spanning tree to converge and recover quickly during failover and fallback.
Back-End Network
The back-end SAN consists of core and edge SAN storage layers to facilitate high-speed data transfers between hosts and storage devices. SAN designs are based on the FiberChannel (FC) protocol. Speed, data integrity, and high availability are key requirements in an FC network. In some cases, in-order delivery must be guaranteed. Traditional routing protocols are not necessary on FC. Fabric Shortest Path First (FSFP), similar to OSPF, runs on all switches for fast fabric convergence and best path selection. Redundant components are present from the hosts to the switches and to the storage devices. Multiple paths exist and are in use between the storage devices and the hosts. Completely separate physical fabrics are a common practice to guard against control plane instability, ensuring high availability in the event of any single component failure.
Figure 7 shows the SAN topology.
Figure 7 SAN Topology
SAN Core Layer
The SAN core layer provides high-speed connectivity to the edge switches and external connections. Connectivity between core and edge switches are 10 Gbps links or trunking of multiple full rate links for maximum throughput. Core switches also act as master devices for selected management functions, such as the primary zoning switch and Cisco fabric services. In addition, advanced storage functions such as virtualization, continuous data protection, and iSCSI reside in the SAN core layer.
SAN Edge Layer
The SAN edge layer is analogous to the access layer in an IP network. End devices such as hosts, storage, and tape devices connect to the SAN edge layer. Compared to IP networks, SANs are much smaller in scale, but the SAN must still accommodate connectivity from all hosts and storage devices in the data center. Over-subscription and planned core-to-edge fan out ratio result in high port density on SAN switches. On larger SAN installations, it is common to segregate the storage devices to additional edge switches.
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Store Network Components
The store network provides users connectivity to corporate resources such as the centralized application services residing in the enterprise data center. The architectural design of the store varies depending on the availability, scalability, security, and other service requirements of the organization.
The Cisco enterprise branch architecture framework defines the network infrastructure, network services, and application optimization capabilities of three typical branch deployment models used in typical store designs. Figure 8 shows these three common store solutions. Each of these profiles provides varying degrees of scalability and resiliency in addition to integrated network and application services.
Figure 8 Network Infrastructure Layer —Three Models
Technology Overview
This section provides an overview of the significant Cisco products and technologies leveraged in this design. The following products are addressed:
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Application Control Engine
Overview
The Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE) provides a highly available and scalable data center solution from which the Oracle E-Business Suite application environment may benefit. Currently, the ACE is available as an appliance or integrated service module in the Catalyst 6500 platform. ACE features and benefits include the following:
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The following sections describe some of the features and functionalities employed in the Oracle E-Business Suite application environment.
ACE Virtualization
Virtualization is a prevalent trend in the enterprise today. From virtual application containers to virtual machines, the ability to optimize the use of physical resources and provide logical isolation is gaining momentum. The advancement of virtualization technologies includes the enterprise network and the intelligent services it offers.
The ACE supports device partitioning where a single physical device may provide multiple logical devices. This virtualization functionality allows system administrators to assign a single virtual ACE device to a business unit or application to achieve application performance goals or service-level agreements (SLAs). The flexibility of virtualization allows the system administrator to deploy network-based services according to the individual business requirements of the customer and technical requirements of the application. Service isolation is achieved without purchasing another dedicated appliance that consumes more space and power in the data center.
Figure 9 shows the use of virtualized network services afforded via the ACE and Cisco Firewall Services Module (FWSM). In this diagram, a Catalyst 6500 housing a single ACE and FWSM supports the business processes of five independent business units. The system administrator determines the requirements of the application and assigns the appropriate network services as virtual contexts. Each context contains its own set of policies, interfaces, resources, and administrators. The ACE and FWSMs allow routed, one-arm, and transparent contexts to co-exist on a single physical platform.
Figure 9 Service Chaining via Virtualized Network Services
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TCP Reuse
TCP reuse allows the ACE to recycle TCP connections to the server farm, essentially reducing the load on the application servers. Servers use RAM to open and maintain connections to clients. RAM is a finite resource that directly impacts server performance. The ACE module allows persistent TCP connections to the application server and reclaims them for use by multiple clients.
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HTTP Header Insertion
The ACE HTTP header insertion feature allows a system administrator to insert a generic string value or to capture the following request specific values:
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HTTP header insertion is especially useful when TCP reuse or the source address of the request may be determined via NAT. HTTP header insertion allows service logs to reflect the original source IP address of the request. Figure 10 shows the insertion of an HTTP header under the name "X-forwarder", reflecting the source IP address of the request.
Figure 10 HTTP Header Insertion Example
Session Persistence
Session persistence is the ability to forward client requests to the same server for the duration of a session. Oracle recommends HTTP session persistence for their E-Business Suite environment via the following:
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ACE supports each of these methods, but given the presence of proxy services in the enterprise, Cisco recommends using the cookie sticky method to guarantee load distribution across the server farm. Figure 10 shows the "ACEOptimized" cookie inserted into the client E-Business request.
In addition, ACE supports the replication of sticky information between devices and their respective virtual contexts. This provides a highly available solution that maintains the integrity of each session.
MAC Sticky
The ACE is capable of reverse path forwarding (RPF) based on the source MAC address on a VLAN interface of the request. This feature allows for transparency at Layer 3 and provides deterministic traffic flows at Layer 2 through the ACE. Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) devices deployed as a server farm under the ACE take advantage of this feature, guaranteeing that the same WAE device consistently manages each TCP session.
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Transparent Interception
Load balancers typically perform a NAT function to conceal the real server IP addresses residing in the retail data center, which means that the virtual IP address (VIP) is transformed and the request is forwarded to a real server. In addition to supporting this functionality, the ACE allows the system administrator to disable NAT for particular server farms, which is a desirable behavior for both firewall load balancing deployments and WAAS server farms.
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Allowed Server Connections
Retail data centers typically perform due diligence on all deployed server and network devices, determining the performance capabilities to create a more deterministic, robust, and scalable application environment. The ACE allows the system administrator to establish the maximum number of active connections values on a per-server basis and/or globally to the server farm. This functionality protects the end device, whether it is an application server or network application optimization device such as the WAE.
Route Health Injection
Route health injection (RHI) allows the ACE to advertise host routes to any number of virtual IP addresses hosted by the device. The injection of the host route to the remaining network offers Layer 3 availability and convergence capabilities to the application environment.
Health Monitoring
The ACE device is capable of tracking the state of a server and determining its eligibility for processing connections in the server farm. The ACE uses a simple pass/fail verdict but has many recovery and failures configurations, including probe intervals, timeouts, and expected results. Each of these features contributes to an intelligent load balancing decision by the ACE context.
Following are the predefined probe types currently available on the ACE module:
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Note that the potential probe possibilities available via scripting make the ACE an even more flexible and powerful application-aware device. In terms of scalability, the ACE module can support 1000 open probe sockets simultaneously.
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Firewall Services Module
Overview
The Cisco Firewall Services Module (FWSM) is a stateful packet inspection engine that delivers access control security between network segments. The FWSM is an integrated service module available on the Catalyst 6500 platform that supports the following two modes of operation:
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FWSM Virtualization
The FWSM supports device partitioning, allowing a single FWSM to be virtualized into multiple security contexts. The security contexts are logically isolated using independent security rules and routing tables. The system administrator can define up to 100 security contexts on a single FWSM. In addition, security context deployments support either routed or transparent mode. Figure 9 shows several configuration options available with the security contexts of the FWSM. FWSM security contexts provide a flexible, scalable solution for data center application deployments.
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Wide Area Application Engine
To appreciate how WAAS provides WAN and application optimization benefits to the enterprise, consider the basic types of centralized application messages that are transmitted between stores. For simplicity, two basic types are identified:
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WAAS uses the technologies described in the following subsections to provide a number of features, including application acceleration, file caching, print service, and DHCP to benefit both types of applications.
Advanced Compression using DRE and Lempel-Ziv Compression
Data Redundancy Elimination (DRE) is an advanced form of network compression that allows Cisco WAAS to maintain an application-independent history of previously-seen data from TCP byte streams. Lempel-Ziv (LZ) compression uses a standard compression algorithm for lossless storage. The combination of using DRE and LZ reduces the number of redundant packets that traverse the WAN, thereby conserving WAN bandwidth, improving application transaction performance, and significantly reducing the time for repeated bulk transfers of the same application.
Transport File Optimizations
Cisco WAAS Transport File Optimizations (TFO) employs a robust TCP proxy to safely optimize TCP at the WAE device by applying TCP-compliant optimizations to shield the clients and servers from poor TCP behavior because of WAN conditions. Cisco WAAS TFO improves throughput and reliability for clients and servers in WAN environments through increases in the TCP window sizing and scaling enhancements as well as implementing congestion management and recovery techniques to ensure that the maximum throughput is restored if there is packet loss.
Common Internet File System Caching Services
Common Internet File System (CIFS), used by Microsoft applications, is inherently a highly chatty transactional application protocol where it is not uncommon to find several hundred transaction messages traversing the WAN just to open a remote file. WAAS provides a CIFS adapter that can inspect and to some extent predict what follow-up CIFS messages are expected. By doing this, the local WAE caches these messages and sends them locally, significantly reducing the number of CIFS messages traversing the WAN.
Print Services
WAAS provides native SMB-based Microsoft print servers locally on the WAE device. Along with CIFS optimizations, this allows for store server consolidation at the data center. Having full-featured local print services means less traffic transiting the WAN. Without WAAS print services, print jobs are sent from a store client to the centralized server(s) across the WAN, then back to the store printer(s), thus transiting the WAN twice for a single job. WAAS eliminates the need for either WAN trip.
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Design and Implementation Details
Design Goals
The retail enterprise network is a platform constructed to support a myriad of business functions; more specifically, applications. The traditional perception of the network relegates its role to one of data transport, providing a reliable fabric for the enterprise. This is a fundamental responsibility of the network infrastructure and should be enhanced rather than neglected. In addition to transport, the ubiquitous nature of the enterprise network fabric allows the introduction of intelligent network services to support business applications. This evolution of the network as an enterprise service platform is natural and supports the following Oracle application objectives:
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The Cisco Lean Retail data center architecture is a holistic approach that allows the network and the applications it supports to work together. The primary goals of this design are to increase the performance, availability, scalability, and manageability of enterprise applications in the data center, while simultaneously providing a secure environment. In addition, this design reduces the complexity and implementation time of enterprise applications in the data center using virtualization technologies and network design best practices. The remainder of this document focuses on each of these objectives when deploying an Oracle E-Business Suite 11i application using the services of the Cisco Lean Retail data center infrastructure and Intelligent Retail Network store solutions.
Design Implementation
This section focuses on the use of the Cisco Wide Area Application Engine (WAE) in conjunction with the Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE) and Cisco Firewall Services Module (FWSM) in the retail data center. The data center deployment described has the ACE in a routed mode with the FWSM deployed transparently. WAE service devices deployed in the data center benefit from the availability and scalability services of the ACE platform.
These designs specifically address a multi-tier deployment of the Oracle E-Business Suite application in the Cisco data center infrastructure architecture. The designs provide centralized load balancing, security, and optimization services for the application. In addition, the virtualization capabilities of both the FWSM and the ACE allow a single physical device to provide multiple logical devices to support a variety of application environments. System administrators can assign a single virtual device to a business unit or application to achieve application performance goals, requirements, or service-level agreements. (See Figure 9).
Store Designs
The WAAS solution requires a minimum of two WAE devices to auto-discover and deliver applicable application optimizations. To leverage these transparent optimizations across the WAN, deploy one or more WAEs at the store and one or more WAEs at the retail data center, depending on availability and scalability requirements.
Within the existing store topologies, the WAE devices may be positioned in one of the following models:
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Figure 11 shows each of these design models. WAE Store Deployment Models shows each of these design models. The extended services store offloads the WAE device from the local store router and leverages the available ports on a local switch. The consolidated store model uses an integrated services router, providing a comprehensive solution within a single platform. Each of these models provides application optimization services. The retailer must consider the scalability and availability requirements of each store for WAAS and other network services before choosing a deployment model.
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Figure 11 WAE Store Deployment Models
WAAS technology requires the efficient and predictable interception of application traffic to produce results. It is critical that the WAE device see the entire TCP conversation. At the WAN edge, Cisco routers support the following four methods of traffic interception:
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WCCPv2 is the most common method used in the store environment; therefore, WCCPv2 has been leveraged for this documentation.
ACE Routed Mode Design
Figure 12 details the data center networking topology used in the test Oracle application environment. Each of the test stores, extended or consolidated, connect to the data center across the WAN and leverage the services of the enterprise edge and data center core (not pictured here) that attach to the aggregation layer of the data center.
Best practices for the Cisco data center infrastructure offer predictable Layer 2 and Layer 3 traffic patterns, permitting the efficient application of network services. From a Layer 2 perspective, the data center must be scalable, flexible, and robust. Given current application clustering, network interface card (NIC) teaming, and virtual machine requirements, the presence of a Layer 2 redundancy protocol is required and will be for the foreseeable future. At this time, Cisco recommends the use of Rapid Per VLAN Spanning Tree (RPVST)+ to achieve sub-second Layer 2 convergences and deterministic flows in the data center.
Figure 12 Logical Topology using ACE in Routed Mode
The Layer 3 devices in the aggregation layer use a redundancy protocol such as Hot Standby Routing Protocol (HSRP) or Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) to create a robust IP network. The Multilayer Switch Feature Card (MSFC) employs an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP), for instance OSPF or EIGRP, to distribute route information to the external network, including updates relative to the state of the E-Business Suite applications. This information is derived from the RHI messages received from the active ACE context. In addition to Layer 2 and Layer 3 functionality, the data center aggregation switches are a natural convergence area in the network, and therefore an ideal location to apply intelligent network services.
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The ACE virtual context in this design is in routed mode, meaning that the default gateway of the APPL_TOP servers points to an alias IP address existing on the virtual ACE context. This alias IP is shared across the two virtual ACE contexts, offering a redundant L3 topology for the server farms. To transparently introduce the application optimization services afforded via WAE appliances, it is necessary to leverage the routing capabilities of an ACE context. Remember that WAE appliances do not alter the IP information on the packet. The IP source and destination information remains unchanged. Therefore, it is necessary to use dedicated VLANs in and out of the ACE context to control the logical flow of traffic into the ACE, to the WAE farm, and egress from the ACE to the server. Essentially, VLANs segmentation prevents the "looping" of TCP flows. Defining an "inbound" client-facing VLAN, a dedicated WAE VLAN, and an "outbound" server-facing VLAN from the ACE perspective effectively avoids this issue by providing predictable traffic patterns between all the parties involved.
The ACE virtual context determines the state of the Oracle environment via health probes. Using this information, the ACE context manages the workload for each Oracle server and the state of the VIP, making the environment highly available and scalable by potentially supporting thousands of E-Business servers. The ACE module currently supports the following load balancing algorithms:
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The ACE allows the system administrator to define a "server farm" of WAE devices to provide application optimization services in the data center. The WAE appliances benefit from the same health monitoring and scalability services provided via the ACE. The system administrator may then balance the E-Business suite workload across many Oracle application servers and numerous WAE devices front ending the Oracle application environment.
The ACE context enforces session persistence to the APPL_TOP servers via IP or Cookie based sticky methods. The WAE devices that reside transparently in the traffic flow leverage Layer2 MAC based sticky to guarantee efficient traffic patterns between the APPL_TOP servers and remote clients.
In Figure 12, multiple FWSM contexts provide security services to the Oracle APPL_TOP and database tiers. The segmented traffic patterns between tiers in the multi-tier Cisco data center infrastructure allows for granular security policies, as well as application services, to be applied at each layer of the stack. In this instance, there are two transparent firewall contexts deployed. Transparent firewalls are "bumps in the wire", bridging traffic between VLAN segments. Transparent firewalls allow the construction advanced Layer 2 topologies by passing Bridge Protocol Data Units (BPDUs) between VLAN segments.
Traffic Pattern Overview
This section describes the traffic pattern flows in and out of the data center when deploying the WAAS, ACE, and FWSM devices. The following connections are discussed:
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Client-to-Server Traffic Flow
Figure 13 through Figure 16 detail the traffic flow from a store user connecting to the E-Business suite application residing in the data center. The application is accessible to the store user across the WAN. The store and data center employ WAAS application optimization services. This example uses an extended services store configuration; however, the use of an ISR in a consolidated store configuration would yield exactly the same traffic patterns from a data center perspective.
The successful optimization of an E-Business suite transaction across the WAN and data center includes the following steps:
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Figure 13 Traffic Pattern—Extended Service Store Example
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Figure 14 WAE TCP Option Trace
Figure 15 is a screenshot defining the HTTP applications recognized by the WAEs in the test bed.
Figure 15 Central Manager Application Classifier Example
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Figure 16 Traffic Pattern—ACE-WAE Data Center Deployment Example
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The configuration states that all traffic destined to the ORACLE_VIP should be load balanced and redirected to the real servers defined under the WAE-SERVERS server farm. The ACE context does not alter the IP source or destination address but transparently load balances the traffic; the transparent keyword indicates that no network address translation (NAT) will occur.
serverfarm host WAE-SERVERStransparentprobe WAErserver DC01-ESE-WCE2inservicerserver DC01-ESE-WCE3inservicerserver DC02-WAE7326-2inservice!class-map match-all ORACLE_VIP2 match virtual-address 10.20.100.100 tcp eq www!policy-map type loadbalance first-match WAE_TRAFFICclass class-defaultserverfarm WAE-SERVERS!policy-map multi-match ORACLE_TCP_TRAFFICclass ORACLE_VIPloadbalance vip inserviceloadbalance policy WAE_TRAFFICloadbalance vip icmp-reply!interface vlan 320description client VLANip address 10.80.1.4 255.255.0.0ip options allowalias 10.80.1.6 255.255.0.0peer ip address 10.80.1.5 255.255.0.0no normalizationno icmp-guardservice-policy input ORACLE_TCP_TRAFFICno shutdownThe ACE context has access control and HTTP deep packet inspection capabilities. HTTP deep packet inspection allows the system administrator to monitor the HTTP protocol, permitting or denying traffic based on user-defined traffic policies. The security features covered by HTTP application inspection include the following:
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Using the regular-expression capabilities of the ACE against HTTP data payloads allows for signature-based security decisions that are usually reserved for IDS/IPS devices.
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!interface vlan 220description ** WAE Server Farm VLAN **ip address 10.220.1.2 255.255.0.0alias 10.220.1.1 255.255.0.0peer ip address 10.220.1.3 255.255.0.0no normalizationmac-sticky enableno icmp-guardservice-policy input VIP_ORACLE_POLICYno shutdownip route inject vlan 32011.
!serverfarm host APPL_TOP_FARMdescription This is the APPL_TOP server farm.probe HTTP_PROBErserver OracleNode1 8000inservicerserver OracleNode2 8000inservice!sticky http-cookie ACEOptimized sticky-ace-cookiecookie insertreplicate stickyserverfarm APPL_TOP_FARM!policy-map type loadbalance first-match ORACLE_POLICYclass class-defaultsticky-serverfarm sticky-ace-cookie!policy-map multi-match VIP_ORACLE_POLICYclass ORACLE_VIPloadbalance vip inserviceloadbalance policy ORACLE_POLICYloadbalance vip icmp-replyappl-parameter http advanced-options TCP-reuseThe ACE context forwards the flow to the real APPL_TOP servers that are protected by a transparent firewall context. At this stage, the destination IP address of the flow has been translated from the VIP to an IP address of a real APPL_TOP server.
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Figure 17 Traffic Pattern—Extended Service Store Return Flow Example
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The show tfo connection command on the store WAE details the results of auto-negotiation for each TCP flow. Following is a portion of the output showing the policy negotiation between the client and Oracle VIP:
Connection Id: 323Start time: Mon May 7 08:10:22 2007Peer Id: 00:14:5e:95:d1:3dConnection type: Ext. ServerSource IP Address: 192.168.30.11Source Port Number: 11773Destination IP Address: 10.20.100.100Destination Port Number: 80Our policy: TCP_OPTIMIZE + DRE + LZPeer policy: TCP_OPTIMIZE + DRE + LZNegotiated policy: TCP_OPTIMIZE + DRE + LZApplied policy: TCP_OPTIMIZE + DRE + LZ23.
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Server-to-Database Traffic Flow
Figure 18 shows the traffic pattern between the APPL_TOP servers and the Oracle database server when using an ACE virtual context in routed mode and leveraging the FWSM virtual context in transparent mode.
Figure 18 APPL_TOP Server to Database Server Traffic Pattern
The APPL_TOP servers initiate the TNS connection with the database server. The ACE module configuration allows this data traffic to pass through via ACLs without performing any load balancing services. In addition to access control, the firewall context provides stateful packet inspection services.
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Architecture Details
This section describes the application and network components of the test bed and includes the following sub-topics:
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Oracle E-Business Suite 11i Environment
This section details the application environment leveraged during testing, identifying the hardware and software components of the test bed.
Hardware
A single HP DL580 server supported the Oracle 11i database. Accessing this database server is a set of five HP DL580 servers housing the APPL_TOP nodes of this deployment. NFS services at the APPL_TOP layer allowed for a "shared" environment across the nodes. Each of the APPL_TOP HP DL580 servers are FiberChannel-attached to shared storage.
Software
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS release 4 (Nahant Update 2) is the operating system used for all nodes in the test bed. The Oracle test environment consists of the following software packages:
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Oracle E-Business Suite contains a sample database named Vision. The Vision database allows the generation of valid application traffic in the test bed using production-ready applications in the 11i suite.
A VMWare Virtual Infrastructure 3 environment, ESX 3.0, housed the Oracle EBS APPL_TOP nodes for testing. Figure 19 is a virtual infrastructure snapshot showing the physical-to-virtual mapping of Node1 in the APPL_TOP environment. Node1 access shared storage across the SAN and currently resides on physical server 10.99.1.156. The virtual NIC (vNIC) of Node1 connects to a virtual machine port group named VM Network.
Figure 19 Sample Node Software Topology
Figure 20 shows the virtual switch configuration on each of the HP DL580 ESX servers. The virtual switch vSwitch0 has three "virtual" ports defined that map to distinct VLANs. In the example shown in Figure 20, the "VM Network" port group maps to VLAN 20, the APPL_TOP VLAN, and currently Oracle Node1 is leveraging its services.
Figure 20 Virtual Machine Network Connectivity
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Oracle E-Business Suite 11i Environment with Integrated Network Services
This section covers the introduction of network services into the Oracle E-Business Suite solution topology. Table 1 lists the network-related hardware and software components.
Topology
Figure 21 shows the Oracle E-Business Suite 11i application environment with the ACE virtual context in a routed mode design. The ACE context provides load balancing, session persistence, and security services to the application. In addition, the ACE context provides these services to a farm of WAE appliances that support application optimization technologies well-suited for E-Business suite deployments.
Figure 21 ACE Routed Mode Test Bed Topology
The routed mode design implies that the ACE is the default gateway for the APPL_TOP server farm. The gateway is accessible via the services of a transparent firewall context. The ACE and firewall context are deployed in an active/standby scenario with stateful failover. An independent pair of transparent virtual firewalls secures the database environment as well. The ability to segment and enforce granular traffic policies at each tier of the application topology is a powerful characteristic of this design.
At the foundation, the application leverages the high availability, scalability, and security features of the Cisco data center infrastructure at Layer 2 and Layer 3. The aggregation switch on the left in Figure 21 represents the "root" of the spanning tree domain and the "active" HSRP Layer 3 interface. To provide efficient traffic patterns in the data center, Cisco recommends keeping active network service contexts aligned with the Layer 2 and 3 topologies. This prevents over utilization of ISLs that may support fault-tolerant protocols in addition to traffic relevant to the application.
The ISLs in the test bed are all 10 Gigabit Ethernet. The access layer switches are dual-homed to the aggregation switches and carry the APPL_TOP and database subnets. The servers are dual-homed to the access layer using an active/standby NIC teaming configuration.
Additional Integrated Service Options
This document addresses the integration of network services with the Oracle enterprise class application, E-Business Suite 11i. Server load balancing and security are fundamental services that may be leveraged by data center applications. In addition, this document details the integration of network-based application optimization services in the data center and store. However, these are not the only integrated network services available for the enterprise. The following network services are also accessible as service modules or appliances:
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The management aspect of the data center and store network environments is critical to the success of the retail enterprise infrastructure. In the test bed, the following Cisco management tools were used to monitor and configure the network environment:
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Although discussing each of these tools in depth is beyond the scope of this document, the Cisco Application Analysis Solution offers a unique perspective of the Oracle enterprise application.
Figure 22 is a screen shot of the AAS tool representing the network traffic generated by the initial login request of a remote store user. The AAS tool is able to resolve and recreate the logical topology of the environment, including the ACE VIP, as application relevant conversations occur between the client, server, and VIP. In addition, the protocols in use, DNS, TNS, and HTTP, are detailed as well as the traffic volume created by each flow in the Oracle application environment. The application insight afforded through the AAS toolset proved to be invaluable for understanding the complete Oracle environment.
Figure 22 Cisco Application Analysis Solution E-Business Suite Example
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Performance Observations
This section describes performance testing conducted using the Oracle E-Business suite application environment. The tests were conducted using the Mercury LoadRunner application test tool. Two LoadRunner scripts were created to determine the potential benefits of the Cisco WAAS solution in an Oracle E-Business deployment. The data center and store environments described earlier provide the end-to-end network connectivity, while netem, a Fedora WAN simulation tool, injects selected delays for each five-minute test iteration. These tests simulate a store user accessing applications homed in the data center.
Figure 23 illustrates the average performance impact of delay on a non-optimized native WAN, and the improvements provided with the Cisco WAAS solution. The range of WAN delays introduced can be described as continental, transatlantic, or satellite in nature. As the chart in Figure 23 illustrates, delay has a negative impact on the user experience. The number of successful transactions is significantly reduced as the delay is increased, and the store user is further removed from the data center application. The WAAS solution provides an improved store user experience, as indicated by the number of successful transactions.
Figure 23 iProcurement Transaction Summary
Figure 24 shows the average amount of data received by the LoadRunner virtual client in the store. The use of DRE and compression technologies on the WAE devices allow for this LAN-like user experience, even across 400 ms WAN delays.
Figure 24 iProcurement Throughput Summary
The WAE devices also show the performance gains via the Central Manager (CM) GUI. The WAE CM shows that WAN traffic reduction is the 80-90 percent range. This effectively means that the amount of bandwidth required to support the E-Business application environment is reduced.
Figure 25 is a view of the WAE CM reflecting the traffic reduction on the WAN.
Figure 25 WAE Central Manager Traffic Reduction Sample with 200 ms of WAN Delay
The CLI commands on the WAEs provides further insight to the application optimizations occurring across the retail network. Figure 26 is a snapshot of the show statistics dre detail command executed on the store WAE.
Figure 26 Sample of DRE Statistics
In this example, you can see that the WAE has received 2341 messages from the store users totaling 1802 KB, and has reduced and compressed the amount of traffic crossing the WAN via DRE and LZ compression to 455 KB, a nearly 75 percent savings. From the data center servers, the WAE has received 6276 messages totaling 3118 KB. Through decompression and DRE reconstruction, the WAE has pushed 40,174 KB toward the remote users in the store, optimizing nearly 92 percent of the traffic.
Summary and Conclusions
The Cisco Lean Retail Oracle E-Business Suite solution provides best practices and implementation guidance that optimizes application availability, performance, and security while lowering application ownership costs.
Cisco Application Networking Services, featuring the Cisco Application Control Engine and Wide Area Application Services product families provides data center, retail store, and the store associate an improved application experience while centralizing the application components. The performance test results reveal the benefits of deploying application network services in an Oracle application environment.
As the retailer expands around the globe and applications evolve to meet the ever-increasing demands of retail, network administrators should leverage the use of application optimization services in the network to keep services in the data center while providing LAN like performance to the stores.
Appendix A—Configurations
Oracle E-Business Suite requires modifications to the APPL_TOP tier to employ network-based load balancing and SSL offload services. The autoconfiguration file retains the APPL_TOP tier configuration information and must be modified to support these advanced services. A previously released document, Integrating Oracle E-Business Suite 11i in the Cisco Data Center, details the modifications necessary to support the following network services in an E-Business suite 11i environment:
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ACE Configuration
ACE Admin Context
logging enablelogging trap 5logging host 172.26.x.x udp/514login timeout 0hostname dc03-aceboot system image:c6ace-t1k9-mz.3.0.0_A1_4.binresource-class oracle11ilimit-resource all minimum 0.00 maximum unlimitedlimit-resource sticky minimum 20.00 maximum unlimitedaccess-list everyone line 10 extended permit icmp any anyaccess-list everyone line 20 extended permit ip any anyclass-map type management match-any ANM_management3 match protocol snmp any4 match protocol telnet any5 match protocol ssh any6 match protocol icmp any7 match protocol https any8 match protocol http anypolicy-map type management first-match ANM_managementclass ANM_managementpermitinterface vlan 146description Management Addressip address 172.26.x.x 255.255.254.0peer ip address 172.26.x.x 255.255.254.0access-group input everyoneservice-policy input ANM_managementno shutdownft interface vlan 13ip address 13.13.13.1 255.255.255.0peer ip address 13.13.13.2 255.255.255.0no shutdownft peer 1heartbeat interval 200heartbeat count 10ft-interface vlan 13ft group 1peer 1priority 150peer priority 110associate-context Admininserviceip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 172.26.x.xcontext oracle11idescription ** Context for Oracle11i Environment **allocate-interface vlan 120allocate-interface vlan 146allocate-interface vlan 220allocate-interface vlan 320member oracle11ift group 2peer 1priority 150peer priority 110associate-context onearminserviceft group 3peer 1priority 150peer priority 110associate-context oracle11iinserviceACE Oracle11i Context
Generating configuration....access-list ALLOW_TRAFFIC line 8 extended permit icmp any anyaccess-list ALLOW_TRAFFIC line 32 extended permit ip any anyaccess-list ALLOW_TRAFFIC line 40 extended permit tcp any anyprobe http HTTP_PROBEdescription This is a basic HTTP Probeport 8000interval 5passdetect interval 5passdetect count 5expect status 200 200probe icmp WAEinterval 5passdetect interval 3passdetect count 5parameter-map type http TCP-reuseserver-conn reuserserver host DC01-ESE-WCE2description DC01-ESE-WCE2ip address 10.220.1.100inservicerserver host DC01-ESE-WCE3description DC01-ESE-WCE3ip address 10.220.1.103inservicerserver host DC02-WAE7326-2description Data Center WAE#2ip address 10.220.1.102inservicerserver host OracleNode1description Oracle APPL_TOP Nodeip address 10.20.100.101inservicerserver host OracleNode2description Oracle APPL_TOP Nodeip address 10.20.100.102inservicerserver host OracleNode3description Oracle APPL_TOP Nodeip address 10.20.100.103inservicerserver host WebCache1description Standalone Oracle WebCacheip address 10.42.100.101inservice! The APPL_TOP servers listen on port 8000 by default.serverfarm host APPL_TOP_FARMdescription This is the APPL_TOP server farm.probe HTTP_PROBErserver OracleNode1 8000inservicerserver OracleNode2 8000inservicerserver OracleNode3 8000inserviceserverfarm host WAE-SERVERStransparentprobe WAErserver DC01-ESE-WCE2inservicerserver DC01-ESE-WCE3inservicerserver DC02-WAE7326-2inservice! HTTP cookie sticky is employed for the APPL_TOP farmsticky http-cookie ACEOptimized sticky-ace-cookiecookie insert browser-expirereplicate stickyserverfarm APPL_TOP_FARM! Allowed management trafficclass-map type management match-any ANM_MANAGEMENT3 match protocol snmp any4 match protocol telnet any5 match protocol ssh any6 match protocol icmp any7 match protocol https any8 match protocol http any! Oracle APPL_TOP VIP addressclass-map match-all ORACLE_VIP2 match virtual-address 10.20.100.100 tcp eq www! Permit ANM_MANAGEMENT class trafficpolicy-map type management first-match ANM_MANAGEMENTclass ANM_MANAGEMENTpermit! This policy refrences the sticky server farm created to support the APPL_TOP serverspolicy-map type loadbalance first-match ORACLE_POLICYclass class-defaultsticky-serverfarm sticky-ace-cookie! Insert the source IP address of the client for logging purposes when TCP reuse enabledinsert-http X-forwarder header-value "%is"! This sends traffic the WAE farmpolicy-map type loadbalance first-match WAE_TRAFFICclass class-defaultserverfarm WAE-SERVERS! This policy is enforced when the destination address is the Oracle APPL_TOP VIP. This policy will forward traffic to the WAE farm via the WAE_TRAFFIC policy.policy-map multi-match ORACLE_TCP_TRAFFICclass ORACLE_VIPloadbalance vip inserviceloadbalance policy WAE_TRAFFICloadbalance vip icmp-reply! This policy map is enforced when the destination is the Oracle VIP (10.20.100.100). Traffic matching that destination has the ORACLE_POLICY applied. This policy references the sticky APPL-TOP farmpolicy-map multi-match VIP_ORACLE_POLICYclass ORACLE_VIPloadbalance vip inserviceloadbalance policy ORACLE_POLICYloadbalance vip icmp-reply! Globally allow traffic to the ACE interfacesaccess-group input ALLOW_TRAFFIC! This is the "south" or server facing interface. In this deployment the FWSM is deployed transparently between the ACE and the Oracle APPL_TOP servers.interface vlan 120description ** FW Facing Server Side VLAN **ip address 10.20.1.2 255.255.0.0! Default gateway for the APPL_TOP farmalias 10.20.1.1 255.255.0.0peer ip address 10.20.1.3 255.255.0.0mtu 2000! ACE is acting as a load balancerno normalizationfragment min-mtu 68no icmp-guardno shutdownip route inject vlan 320! Management intefaceinterface vlan 146ip address 172.x.x.x 255.255.254.0peer ip address 172.x.x.x 255.255.254.0no icmp-guard! Allow ANM access vis this service policyservice-policy input ANM_MANAGEMENTno shutdown! VLAN supporting the WAE farmsinterface vlan 220description ** WAE Farm **ip address 10.220.1.2 255.255.0.0! Default gateway for WAEs in the farmalias 10.220.1.1 255.255.0.0peer ip address 10.220.1.3 255.255.0.0mtu 2000no normalizationfragment min-mtu 68! Mac sticky will allow for transparent stickiness to the WAE device farmmac-sticky enableno icmp-guard! This service policy supports the Oracle VIP 10.20.100.100service-policy input VIP_ORACLE_POLICYno shutdown! Advertise the VIP to the network external to the data center. This route advertisement is received by the data center aggregation layer MSFC's. OSPF and BGP update the store ISRs.ip route inject vlan 320! Client facing interfaceinterface vlan 320description Client Side VLANip address 10.80.1.4 255.255.0.0! Allow TCP Options to permit WAE auto-discoveryip options allowalias 10.80.1.6 255.255.0.0peer ip address 10.80.1.5 255.255.0.0mtu 2000! ACE is configured as a load balancerno normalizationfragment min-mtu 68no icmp-guard! Service policy applied to ingress traffic in this case requests to the VIP 10.20.100.100 are intercepted and optimized via the WAE serverfarmservice-policy input ORACLE_TCP_TRAFFICno shutdown!Default Route to HSRP Address on the Aggregation Catalyst 6500's MSFCip route 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 10.80.1.1snmp-server contact "xxxxx@cisco.com"snmp-server location "RTP, NC"snmp-server community MyCommunity group Network-Monitorsnmp-server community public group Network-Monitorsnmp-server host 172.x.x.x traps version 1 publicsnmp-server host 172.x.x.x traps version 3 auth adminsnmp-server trap-source vlan 146snmp-server enable traps slb vserversnmp-server enable traps slb realsnmp-server enable traps syslogsnmp-server enable traps snmp authenticationsnmp-server enable traps snmp linkupsnmp-server enable traps snmp linkdownWAE Configuration
! WAAS version 4.0.9 (build b10 Apr 6 2007)!device mode application-accelerator!!hostname DC02-WAE7326-2!primary-interface GigabitEthernet 1/0!!!interface GigabitEthernet 1/0ip address 10.220.1.102 255.255.0.0exitinterface GigabitEthernet 2/0ip address 172.x.x.x 255.255.254.0exit!!!This is the alias address on the ACE deviceip default-gateway 10.220.1.1!no auto-register enable!ntp server 10.220.99.99!central-manager address 192.168.1.33cms enable!!!tfo tcp optimized-send-buffer 8192tfo tcp optimized-receive-buffer 8192!!adapter epm enable!! The APPL_TOP traffic is traversing the WAN using port 80. The default policy configured on the WAE will be applied. Note that the APPL_TOP configuration can be modified to any port.policy-engine applicationclassifier HTTPmatch dst port eq 80match dst port eq 8080match dst port eq 8000match dst port eq 8001match dst port eq 3128name Web...! Full optimization is applied to the APPl_TOP WAN trafficmap basicname Web classifier HTTP action optimize full!!! End of WAAS configurationAppendix B—References
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https://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/plsql/showdoc?db=NOT&id=233428.1
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https://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/plsql/showdoc?db=NOT&id=217368.1
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https://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/plsql/showdoc?db=NOT&id=233428.1
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Appendix C—Glossary
Cisco Application Control Engine (ACE)
The Cisco Application Control Engine is a module within the Catalyst 6500 Series switch that allows applications resources to be distributed and managed via logical groups within a given physical platform. The ACE also provides high levels of Layer 4-7 performance (16 Gpbs and 345,000 connections per second) to optimize application performance and provide scalability. For more information on the ACE service module see the following URL: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6906/index.html
Cisco Firewall Services Module (FWSM)
The Cisco Firewall Services Module (FWSM) is a high-speed, integrated firewall module for Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series switches and Cisco 7600 Series routers, and provides the fastest firewall data rates in the industry: 5-Gbps throughput, 100,000 CPS, and 1M concurrent connections. Up to four FWSMs can be installed in a single chassis, providing scalability to 20 Gbps per chassis. For more information on the FWSM service module, see the following URL: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/modules/ps2706/ps4452/index.html
Cisco Wide Area Application Engine (WAE)
The Cisco Wide Area Application Engine (WAE) platforms are a portfolio of powerful, scalable network appliances that host WAN optimization and application acceleration solutions that enable store server consolidation, performance improvements for centralized applications, and provide remote users with LAN-like access to applications, storage, and content across the WAN.
Cisco WAAS Central Manager
Cisco WAAS is centrally managed by a scalable, secure, and simple function called the Cisco WAAS Central Manager that runs on Cisco WAE appliances. The central manager can be configured for high availability by deploying a pair of Cisco WAEs as central managers; configuration and monitoring data is automatically shared by the two central manager WAEs. The central manager provides a centralized mechanism for configuring features and reporting, and can manage a topology containing thousands of Cisco WAE nodes.
Cisco Validated Design
The Cisco Validated Design Program consists of systems and solutions designed, tested, and documented to facilitate faster, more reliable, and more predictable customer deployments. For more information visit www.cisco.com/go/validateddesigns.
ALL DESIGNS, SPECIFICATIONS, STATEMENTS, INFORMATION, AND RECOMMENDATIONS (COLLECTIVELY, "DESIGNS") IN THIS MANUAL ARE PRESENTED "AS IS," WITH ALL FAULTS. CISCO AND ITS SUPPLIERS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT OR ARISING FROM A COURSE OF DEALING, USAGE, OR TRADE PRACTICE. IN NO EVENT SHALL CISCO OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOST PROFITS OR LOSS OR DAMAGE TO DATA ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE DESIGNS, EVEN IF CISCO OR ITS SUPPLIERS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
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1 Gartner: Server consolidation can save money 12/2005.
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